Check unread and new emails without switching to Mail.app.

The Unread lets you check unread and new emails without switching to Mail.app.

From the developer:

I have lots of applications with lots of BIG windows and only one monitor. I wanted a quick way to see if I had any new mail in Mail without actually wasting the .35 seconds required to make the Dock spring up or to command+tab to Mail only to have my hopes dashed by not finding a little red badge on the Mail icon. I tried a Konfabulator widget that had a floating window that displayed if and how many unread emails you have, but try as I might I just don't have the taste for floating windows, I value my screen more...

What's New

New "Only check INBOX for IMAP accounts" (now a default) that should improve handling of large IMAP accounts. It can be turned off if you need to monitor mailboxes other than INBOX. This option does NOT affect .Mac accounts.

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Details

The Unread lets you check unread and new emails without switching to Mail.app.

From the developer:

I have lots of applications with lots of BIG windows and only one monitor. I wanted a quick way to see if I had any new mail in Mail without actually wasting the .35 seconds required to make the Dock spring up or to command+tab to Mail only to have my hopes dashed by not finding a little red badge on the Mail icon. I tried a Konfabulator widget that had a floating window that displayed if and how many unread emails you have, but try as I might I just don't have the taste for floating windows, I value my screen real eastate and no matter where I put the darned things they eventually (or immediately) get in my way.<br><br> It's frustrating, I know, but I'm here to help!<br><br> That nice, compact, warm and fuzzy menu bar is (almost) always there, why not take advantage of that? And so I have. The Unread will display a menu bar status item representing the number of unread emails (if any) you have in your accounts in Mail. The title is highly customizable for each of four situations:<br>

1. An error has occurred.

2. Mail is not running.

3. You have no unread messages.

4. You do have unread messages.

The can be set to whatever you want for each situation. It's a simple, small, effective and -- in my opinion -- useful little tool. Give it a shot.

New "Only check INBOX for IMAP accounts" (now a default) that should improve handling of large IMAP accounts. It can be turned off if you need to monitor mailboxes other than INBOX. This option does NOT affect .Mac accounts.

New preference to automatically launch Mail if it is not running. It can be set to either do this at any time or only when The Unread is launched (so, for instance, you can put The Unread in your startup items and it AND Mail will be launched at startup).

You can now set it so that selecting a mailbox from the menu will not just activate Mail but also select that mailbox in the front viewer window.

Added a "Check for new mailboxes" menu item that can be used if you add a new mailbox and want it to show up in The Unread without quitting and relaunching.

You can set the default include behavior for new mailboxes to be automatically excluded, automatically included or have The Unread ask you what to do.

Added an optional "Mark all as read" submenu to mark all unread messages in a certain mailbox as read without switching to Mail. Useful if you subscribe to mailing lists and don't want them to show up in your count.

You can now use blank titles by setting the title in the preferences to "BLANK" (without the quotes).

Changed the include list to use checkmarks and x's instead of yes/no and also changed it so that accounts with some included and some excluded show a dash to indicate that.

Fixed a bug where if Mail was not running and you were using the icons no icon would be displayed. 1